The Other Column
“There’s a measure of people who don’t understand
The pleasures of life in a hillbilly band.”
– Bob McDill, “Amanda”
They did their fair share (and, probably, someone’s else’s) of drinking, touring and brushing up against fame. They went through personnel changes, artistic disagreements, break-ups and the unpleasant discovery they were growing old. They evolved from the kind of band that performed country-and-western schtick and sounded OK after a couple six packs, into an alternative-country original that could be appreciated stone cold sober (although I’m not necessarily recommending that).
Now, Diesel Doug & the Long Haul Truckers have come to what looks like the end of the line.
Nobody in the group will quite admit it’s over, but it appears that with the release in September of the retrospective album “Mistakes Were Made,” DD&TLHT have wrapped up their decade-long reign as Maine’s premier C&W rebels.
“I don’t think we’re really thinking much about the future,” said Scott Link, the alter ego of Diesel Doug. “We may make another record or play another show, but it’s not really a priority for any of us at this point.”
Link has a steady job, selling real estate. No more gigs at Silly’s in Portland, where patrons had to walk through the band to get to the tables. No more traveling all the way to Birmingham, Ala., to play a show nobody showed up to hear. But also no more opening for Willie Nelson before a sold-out house in Bangor. No more packing Portland’s Free Street Taverna with all their boozy friends. No more seeing their names in the alt-country press right next to Ryan Adams and Steve Earle.
“We’re all in our 40s. You go as far with it as you can,” said Link. “We weren’t gonna get any radio [airplay]. When we realized that, it doesn’t make sense to bank your life around the band, entirely.”
Too bad, because most of the stuff on “Mistakes” sounds a lot better than anything I’ve heard in the last decade on country radio, a medium Long Haul Truckers lead guitarist Charlie Gaylord said made him want to “reach for a razor blade to cut my ears off.” The album features a sampling of Truckers’ favorites from cartoon songs like “I’d Like To Quit Drinkin’ (But I Live Over a Bar)” and “18 Wheels of Love” to more emotionally complex tracks, like “Circles” and “Not Much to Say.” The material is sometimes humorous, sometimes moving, but always original and honest.
The band formed in 1995, the result of some joking around between Link and Haakon Kallweit at Portland open-mic gigs. At the time, Link’s knowledge of country music was pretty much limited to Steve Earle’s “Guitar Town” album, but that wasn’t a bad place to start, and his ignorance probably saved the group from becoming overly reverential. He never got bogged down in staying true to ol’ Hank or ol’ Lefty or even ol’ Gram, because he hadn’t listened to any of them.
By the following year, Kallweit had split to join the Piners, and Gaylord, drummer John Davison and bassist Chris Tuttle (replaced in 1997 by Scott Conley) had arrived. Gaylord, in particular, brought a broader musical perspective, and it wasn’t long before versions of Dick Curless’ “Tombstone Every Mile” and Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried” joined the set list, along with the Knitters’ “The Call of the Wrecking Ball” and the Iguanas’ “My Girlfriend is a Waitress,” plus a steady stream of Link originals.
For the record, nobody in the Long Haul Truckers actually drove an 18-wheeler. Link once admitted he got the lines in “Never Lookin’ Down” about a driver sitting “eight feet off the blacktop” and putting his rig in “the hammer lane” from a magazine article he found in a waiting room. Somehow, Link and Gaylord (a sales manager for a printing company) were able to crawl inside the heads of imaginary truckers, losers, lovers and cocktail cowboys to create believable lyrics and memorable tunes.
The proof is there on “Mistakes,” from early recordings like the title track from the group’s first album, “An Angel Not A Saint” (“I really had no idea what I was doing when I made that record,” said Link. “I could hardly play and sing at the same time”), to later pieces like “Pride’s Corner” (“We became a really good band in spite of ourselves”). There’s hardcore country (“Thin White Line”) and hardcore dopiness (“Daddy’s Drinkin’ Up Our Christmas”). There’s even a title-justifying mistake by the band in its ill-considered re-recording of “If I’d Shot Her When I Met Her (I’d Be Outta Jail By Now”). The excellent original on the band’s out-of-print second album, “The Fine Art of Carousing,” is bluesy, boozy and regretful. The new version, recorded in April 2005, is musically tighter, but comes off as creepy, like a bad day at Kurt Cobain’s house.
So maybe it’s just as well the band is calling it quits before things degenerate any further.
Which is not to say there won’t be more musical adventures from the Long Haul Truckers. Link is recording a solo album under his own name. “It’ll be a little more serious, less tongue in cheek,” he said. “Kind of singer-songwriter with a country flavor.” Bassist Conley is a member of the Muddy Marsh Ramblers, an alt-bluegrass band. Gaylord is busy producing the sixth volume of the annual compilation of local roots, pop and rock artists, “Greetings From Area Code 207,” a fundraiser for the St. Lawrence Arts and Community Center in Portland. (It’ll hit stores in early November, and you should buy a few dozen as Christmas gifts.) He also hosts a weekly local-music show on WCLZ.
As for DD&TLHT, if the band ever reassembles, it ought to be in humble surroundings. “We don’t do so good at the Center for Cultural Exchange, where everybody is sober and just sits and listens,” said Gaylord. “But put us in front of a liquored-up crowd late at night in a bar, and it’s great.”
So check your local honky tonk. It’s the most likely place for more mistakes to be made.
Diesel Doug & The Long Haul Truckers’ “Mistakes Were Made” is available through www.dieseldoug.com or www.cornmealrecords.com. Al Diamon’s column on whatever happens to interest him at the moment appears monthly. He can be e-mailed at ishmaelia@gwi.net.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
